Andy Ram

Andy Ram (Hebrew: אנדי רם‎; born April 10, 1980) is a retired Israeli professional tennis player. He is primarily a doubles player.

He is the first Israeli tennis player to win a senior Grand Slam event. He first won the mixed doubles title at the 2006 Wimbledon Championships, together with Vera Zvonareva. He then won the mixed doubles title at the 2007 French Open with Nathalie Dechy, and the men's doubles title at the 2008 Australian Open with Jonathan Erlich.

Ram attained his highest doubles ranking of World No. 5 in July 2008. He reached 36 doubles finals and won 20 of them through 2013, mostly with partner Jonathan Erlich; together, they are known in Israel as "AndiYoni". His Davis Cup doubles record, as of 2013, was 17-7.

In May 2014, he announced his retirement, to take effect after Israel's Davis Cup tie in September.

In April 2015, Andy Ram, CEO of Pulse Play, announced his new startup - wearable technology and app for amateur tennis players around the world.

Background

Ram, born in Montevideo, Uruguay, is Jewish. His father Amiram, a former professional soccer player for Betar Jerusalem in the 1950s, is Israeli. After his father was injured he was sent to Uruguay on "shlihut" ("outreach"), and it was there that he met Ram's mother, who is Uruguayan. He has an older brother and a younger sister. They moved to Jerusalem when he was five, which is when he began playing tennis. "It was tough at the beginning because I couldn't speak the language, and was fighting with people in the kindergarten who didn't understand me", said Ram. "My parents decided to send me to the tennis center not long after we arrived."